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Zoo Welcomes Peter Zahler as Vice President of Conservation Initiatives

Peter Zahler will join Woodland Park Zoo as Vice President of Conservation Initiatives in March 2018.

As Peter Zahler asks in his article, Super
Rare Super Squirrel, “What glides down mountains at night, sleeps in
cliff caves during the day, eats primarily pine needles, and was thought to be
extinct for 70 years? And, at four feet in length, is the biggest gliding
mammal in the world?” Hint: it’s the same species that Peter rediscovered in
Pakistan in 1994—the woolly flying squirrel (which was then thought to be
extinct).

Peter is no stranger to enigmatic species having led
conservation projects from Alaska, Arizona, Venezuela and Peru, Papua New Guinea,
and Fiji to the temperate mountains and vast grasslands of Central Asia. He has
studied animals like the Asiatic cheetah, snow leopard, markhor, hoatzin,
bristle-thighed curlew, Mongolian gazelle and grasshopper mouse.

Peter’s 30 years of professional experience in conservation
leadership includes field programs, research, training, capacity building and
communications. He knows that wildlife
conservation is about people just as much as it is about animals. That’s why we
are excited to announce that he will be joining the Woodland Park Zoo family as
Vice President of Conservation Initiatives.

“We are thrilled to welcome Peter to Woodland Park Zoo where he will
be leading and coordinating all institutional wildlife conservation efforts
toward the creation of a social movement for conservation solutions,” said
Woodland Park Zoo’s President and CEO Alejandro Grajal. “Peter brings a
distinguished background in community-based conservation, an ideal fit for the
zoo as we pursue our new mission, to save wildlife and inspire everyone to make
conservation a priority in their lives. We are very excited to see how Peter
will use his experience to electrify our community and help us take our
conservation efforts and our social movement to a whole new level.”

Peter has a global perspective, with a strong emphasis in
Asia, where he once served as the regional director for the Wildlife
Conservation Society (WCS). His extensive managerial experience in conservation
includes designing and implementing three full-sized country programs in
Pakistan, Mongolia and Afghanistan. These three programs are considered
cutting-edge examples of payment-for-ecological-services, institutional
governance building, protected area design and development, community-based
conservation and partnering with industry.

Peter joins us from the Wildlife Conservation Society, a non-profit conservation organization that works with conservation programs around the world and operates New York’s signature zoos including Bronx Zoo. There, he was the director of training and capacity building, which involved advising the global health program, coordinating the snow leopard program and the Wildlife Conservation Society Science Council. He is a mentor to young
conservation leaders from developing nations and supports developing country
conservationists around the world. We are eager to learn from Peter’s extensive
conservation experience and welcome him to Seattle in early March.

He will no doubt feel right at home in this community that
has made conservation so central to its identity, to its heart. Your love for
animals and your deep commitment to wildlife drive us to be a voice for all
species. In our commitment to
wildlife conservation, we see Peter’s leadership, expertise and extensive
background in bridging innovation and meaningful action as powerful and
tangible modes for saving species.

Thank you for your support and please join us in welcoming Peter and
his family to Woodland Park Zoo.